On Trust and Torments
by thegreatdusknoir
Summary: Humanized Future PMD:E AU: Dusknoir gets hurt and somehow winds up on Grovyle's doorstep. Grovyle responds the only way he knows how. Warnings inside.


**Title:** _On Trust and Torments_, aka, _Why Humanized PMD Would Actually be Sort of Dark_, aka, _The Implications of Dusknoir Evolving_

**Notes/Warnings:** Pokemon – any form, variation, or game – does not belong to me. The following story includes: Humanized characters, mentions of violence/abuse, complete and utter OOC-ness. Could be interpreted as vague Grovyle/Dusknoir. See "Author's Notes" section at the bottom for more comments.

In retrospect, they were always friends – albeit in a strange, demented, and utterly twisted way. There was a level of trust between the two of them. It wasn't always positive, and it wasn't always helpful, but it was there.

Way off, way before Grovyle had even met his partner, or gotten to the point in his research where the phrase "Time Gear" was relevant in any way, or changing history was even a viable option, he and his rival were nothing more than two vague enemies with differing political views. He himself was a scrawny rebel, hell-bent on doing _something_ to change and _understand_ life, and the wispy-haired boy he occasionally spat with was but another victim sucked into the spinning vortex of the temporal god's corruption.

There weren't too many unfamiliar faces in his neck of the woods, so it was far too easy to recognize faces and get to know those who passed through. People didn't move very often – of course, there was always talk of eventually running out of food and general supplies for life, but nobody really did anything about it. There was Celebi, some Sableye that occasionally patrolled the area, and of course, the mini-ruler of the region himself, who sometimes stopped by to see if his fists were compatible with Grovyle's face quite yet. Grovyle was too fast for him, but that didn't seem to stop him from trying.

It was usually simple things they squabbled over. Mainly, of course, Grovyle's lifestyle.

"Stop causing trouble," he'd direct. "The paralysis is _none_ of your concern."

"I'd rather research than sit around and rot," he'd call back – by then, he'd already be running. Running, running, running. Was that all he did? Making changes in the world was hard. He'd learn eventually. Baby steps, after all.

They had their arguments. As time went on (or rather, the illusion of time continued), they became more and more frequent – in fact, it was soon evident that one of them would surely be the other's demise, somehow. That only became truer and truer as Grovyle became more and more immersed in history and as the menace of a Lord became more and more obsessed with power. Never did either of them ever think they'd help, or even _save_ the other – but, of course, life has a way of throwing curveballs. Even the best of people aren't immune to it.

Grovyle certainly wasn't.

Grovyle hadn't seen the boy in what _felt_ like a long while – if he had a watch and a calendar, it would have been perhaps weeks. His senses were on high alert – Celebi was out for a while, so it would be a prime time for him to surprise attack him. Dusclops would probably jump on such an opportunity, the little _jerk_.

He took extra care for the entire day – he checked every corner he turned, every place he sat, everywhere he could have possibly snuck up on him – but no attack ever came. Something still didn't feel right. Looking back, that was probably the first instance where his gut instinct was right, and it was certainly the last time he ever wanted one.

The house he and Celebi were living in – pre-traveling days; he had yet to make trouble worth being chased after – was safe and sound. No Dusclops in sight. He double checked every nook, every cranny, and overall every inch of the place. He tried to quell the feeling in his stomach by going so far as to investigate under the beds, but again, no dice. The suspense was _killing_ him. Before he went to bed, he locked the door, then unlocked it, then relocked it several times until he was sure it was shut.

It was safe to say that he _wouldn't_ sleep that night, and really, it was a good thing he didn't. Around the time where he should have been good and asleep, he was instead sitting in the front room, his nose stuck in a book and several candles on his desk as if it were a normal thing to be doing. He began to hear the noises right about then - they were close, and they were quiet, but they were there. Something – er, some_body_ was outside of his house. His nerves shot through the roof for a moment, but after noticing how loud they were being, he realized it couldn't have been Dusclops. He'd have taken his time, making sure to be quiet enough for it to be a surprise – this person was stepping on every other stray twig. There was no malevolence in their stride. Grovyle stayed still.

The sounds were getting closer, until there was a final _knock knock knock_ at the front entrance.

Grovyle eyed it hesitantly, but as the knocking continued – now almost desperate (was he imagining it?) – he set his book down and got up.

Standing by the door, he called through it, "Yes?"

"Grovyle."

It took him a moment to recognize the voice. It _was_ Dusclops, but he didn't sound cocky, or satisfied, or antagonistic in any way - his voice almost cracked, in fact, and there was a sense of weariness to it.

He was suddenly very, very afraid for his rival.

Grovyle opened the door slowly – it was dark, as it _always_ was, but his eyes were well-adjusted, and the candles inside provided enough of a shimmer for him to make out the shape of his foe. He was leaning heavily to the side of the doorway, now, and was looking up at him with a pained smile.

"My apologies," he choked out, "but I'd like for you to save your berating for later." As he spoke, Grovyle began to figure out what was wrong – the damn dimmed lighting was going to be the end of him! – Dusclops was, in a word, beaten up. Badly. Grovyle gulped down a sound of distress as he noticed how much blood was on his clothes and in his hair - - -

Dusclops lurched forward a bit; Grovyle had no choice but to help steady him.

"Come on," he sighed, keeping his voice steady. "I'll fix you up."

Dusclops passed out very soon after Grovyle set him down on a cluster of old blankets on the floor. It was just as well, because his inevitable snark and comments would only distract Grovyle from whatever he'd have to do to heal him. Honestly, deep down, he had a fairly good idea of what had happened, but he didn't want to accept it, or even say it out loud.

After lighting the fire in the hearth and collecting all of his (or rather, Celebi's) medical equipment (not much, in all honesty), he sat himself down next to the unconscious boy.

A check of his pulse assured him that he was still alive and breathing. Hopefully, he wouldn't die. As annoying as he was, Grovyle would miss him if he left – after all, he was an incentive to get stronger. Without him, who would try and beat him up? Who would chastise him for wanting to change the status quo? Who would be there to accidentally and unintentionally further inspire him to give Primal Dialga's regime the middle finger?

Next was to actually look for his wounds – at first, it looked like a lot, but it seemed to only be a few really bad ones. His left hand appeared to be broken, but on further examination, the blood from it was simply from a large gash on his palm. Hopefully nothing was broken – he could treat basic cuts, but broken bones were beyond his realm of capabilities. He'd need Celebi to do that.

Grovyle examined his face – he spent perhaps a touch too long looking at it., but it was a lot to take in. His nose was crooked, and, similar to the gash on his hand, the skin near left eye down to his mid cheek was also cut up. The eye itself looked okay – he had, with both injuries, escaped anything fatal or wholly problematic. His light and normally neat-looking white hair was a mess (was it just the light, or was it looking more blond?), and the fringe was soaked in blood. How, pray tell, did he actually manage to get to his house in such a condition?

He dreaded this part the most, and it was mostly because he was afraid of what he might find. His shirt was soaked through in the chest region – it could have been because of his hand, or it could have been because of some other injury. It seemed unlikely, as the shirt itself was in fine condition, but there was still the steady tap-tap-tap of beating anxiety rising in his throat.

He rapidly unbuttoned his shirt, and let out a sigh of relief; no gashes, no cuts, no broken anything – just a lot of reddish bruises. Ouch, they'd look _nasty_ in a few days. Nonetheless, they shouldn't be a problem.

His shoulders were also bruised, and one of his arms had what appeared to be scratch marks – they were deep, but thankfully not on the underside of his arm. That was probably where most of the blood had come from.

Feeling a tad awkward, he buttoned his shirt back up, and then got started on what needed to be done.

Cleaning first, that's what Celebi had taught him. He started with his hand and arm, then worked his way up to his face, then his eye. Most of everything looked like it was starting to clot at this point, but bandaging would be necessary to prevent infection, or even more bleeding. Who had done this to him…? Again, he knew, but didn't dare think it.

Cleaning and healing was a boring process – there was a reason that Celebi handled their injuries and not him. For one thing, he didn't have the weird magic for it she seemed to, and for another, the smell of blood made his stomach do flip-flops. It was an unpleasant and metallic scent, one that he most certainly would avoid for the rest of his life if possible.

And the sheer fact that _somebody_ had injured Dusclops to this extent was enraging – his hands didn't seem to be broken, and they certainly weren't bruised. There was no blood under his bitten-down fingernails, either – he clearly made no attempt to fight back! It made him dizzy with two parts irritation and one part fear.

After applying what was left of Celebi's concocted anti-bacterial healing goo (he suspected it was a mush of plants and spit. Hell, if _she_ was magic, wouldn't her saliva be, too? If it was, he couldn't complain) to the gashes, he realized that he wanted to kick himself for not knowing how to properly stitch somebody up. Hopefully that wouldn't matter. Carefully, he wrapped up his hand and arm. His face was a mess; there was _nothing_ he could do for his nose, but maybe something for the eye dilemma. He decided on tying a makeshift eye patch to put over his eye, then bandaged up that part of his head, too. The only things he had going for him were bandages, questionable goo, and some painkillers for when he eventually woke up.

He wouldn't die. He couldn't.

Grovyle spent what he would later realize to be hours hovering over him, scrubbing the blood out of his hair and clothes, and later, reading to him. He refused to let the idea of him dying get to him. He absolutely _couldn't_. He wouldn't allow it – it simply wasn't an option.

He woke up later curled up next to Dusclops – of course, a reasonable hovering distance away – with the book covering up most of his face. He sat up at once, silently chewing himself out for crashing, but stopped when he saw that Dusclops was sitting up. His head was bowed, but he was sitting up nonetheless.

Grovyle sat up himself, then reached out for the boy's wrist. He complied silently. His heart rate was settling down to a more normal beat compared to before. That was a good sign, he thought.

"Painkillers?" He said aloud, closing the book.

Dusclops shook his head.

Grovyle dug through his pile of supplies until he found the bottle of tablets. He forced two into the other's hand, and almost immediately, the boy stuck them in his mouth and swallowed him. Apparently asking for them would damage his pride.

"I'll get you some water," he sighed, then made a trip to the "kitchen" – after finding a water bottle, he returned and set it next to the young lord. Dusclops didn't touch it; he reached up with his good hand and felt at his eye area.

Quietly, Grovyle said the only thing he knew to say: "It was Dialga."

Dusclops didn't answer for the longest time, but when he did, it was almost silent and filled with perhaps more emotion than he'd ever heard him say – "It was my fault."

Grovyle considered punching him, but then thought better of it. He instead reached out and gently patted at his hand, the most comforting gesture he thought would be socially acceptable between the two. "Say that again, and I'll hit you," he said softly. Dialga was an insane and demented being with too much power under his belt; anything he did was his fault and his fault alone. His reasoning for harming his own personal henchman was presumably just as twisted as his soul. Grovyle didn't want to know the specifics.

He studied his silent enemy. His hair _did_ look blonder now – it was almost a yellow, now. What had prompted the change in hair color? The only time his hair had changed before was when it went from black to white, and that was when he changed his name and-

"…You evolved," he noted dryly.

Dusclops shrugged. "That's just how I roll," he mumbled. "I get beaten up, and my hair changes color. I'm Dusknoir now, I believe."

So he was.

"You'll live, if that's of any consolation, even if you have to live with that ridiculous name."

"My eye?"

"Swollen, but fine. I don't know if your nose is broken or just bruised – worst case, it'll be a bit crooked. You'll heal up just fine."

"…When can I return?"

It took Grovyle a moment to understand the implications of what he said. Even after _that_, he still wanted to go back to Dialga? Was he insane, or just _stupid_?

"Why?" He asked.

"I have to." Dusclops – no, _Dusknoir _– replied. "He probably won't remember a thing. I'll be fine. We can get back to our regularly scheduled bickering before you even know it, I promise." He pulled out a small scrap of violet cloth from his pants pocket, and began to slowly fiddle with it with one hand.

"You're _crazy_."

"At least I'm not trying to rebel against a _god_," he shot back.

Time, as it always pretended to, passed. Dusknoir healed up faster than Grovyle would have thought – maybe he had a healing gift like Celebi did, or maybe he was just that determined to go back to his oh-so-precious god. They spoke, not as enemies, but as hesitant friends for that short while. Grovyle knew they'd go back to fighting as soon as he left, and that there was nothing he could do about it – on one hand, he wanted the old Dusclops back, but on the other, he was afraid of what this new Dusknoir could do. His eye – and later, _eyes_ – looked different. There was a steadfast gleam in them, a sense of what seemed to be clarity and wicked conviction.

The evening (as it always was) that he left, he reached out and shook Grovyle's hand – the last time they'd make contact in a purely neutral way, he realized.

"I appreciate what you've done for me, Grovyle. I owe you."

"No, you don't."

"I do." As he turned to leave, holding the door handle, he said softly, "Time Gears."

"What?"

"I no longer owe you. I'll see you the next time you decide to cause trouble."

As the blond shut the door and left, two things echoed in his ears: What would Dusknoir do if he showed up at his doorstop, bloody and soon to be unconscious?

And more importantly…what in the world were Time Gears?

A/N: hello! my god, did you actually read all of that? I salute you, brave soldier! this is actually my first published fanfiction – i'm working on a multi-chapter one, and i did this as sort of a break from it. it's sort of shaky, and shitty, and the idea is bland, and it's not shippy at all, but it's simple enough of a fanfic for me to ease myself into the community with, I think.

my train of thought for it went something like this: "wait, in the main series, dusclops only evolves with a reaper cloth after being traded. if you were to ignore the in-series link cable, could you translate 'trade' to 'abandon'? or? something else? could i…._write a fanfiction that would help quench my vaguely masochistic tendencies and then make other people read it and suffer with me?_ perfect." feel free to hit me for thinking about this k thx bye


End file.
